Salesforce: Salesforce Shows Off AI Bona Fides and Launches AI Cloud During AI Day

Salesforce CRM hosted its artificial intelligence event where the company discussed its AI strategy, advancements in generative AI technology, and some of its key solutions. Importantly, Salesforce made a variety of product announcements, none more important than AI Cloud, while advancing the theme of trust in its AI architecture. We have repeatedly highlighted that despite a lack of high-profile announcements (until today) related to generative AI, Salesforce has been a leader in artificial intelligence for years already. We appreciate the firm making the case loud and clear at the event. While we think AI Cloud supports our wide moat rating and will likely be additive to growth over the next few years, we do not think it necessitates a change in our model, especially given the uncertainty around generative AI.

Salesforce’s first foray into what we think of as AI was in 2014 with the launch of Einstein, which now makes more than one trillion predictions per week. Over the last few months, the firm has launched pilot and beta solutions, including Service GPT, Sales GPT, Commerce GPT, Slack GPT, Einstein GPT, and GPT Trust Layer for improved security, compliance, and data protection. The firm also provided a roadmap with a variety of other AI solutions such as Marketing GPT, Tableau GPT, and Commerce GPT, along with the time frames for their respective releases over the next three quarters.

Importantly, during the event Salesforce announced AI Cloud. AI Cloud allows customers to use large language models, or LLMs, provided by Salesforce, brought by themselves, or from third party providers, such as OpenAI. To advance trust, AI Cloud uses techniques to prevent company data from being viewed by Salesforce and from being ingested into generic LLMs, thereby becoming part of the larger AI. Pricing for AI Cloud starts at $360,000 per year and includes a package of licenses and usage for Sales Cloud, Slack, Einstein, MuleSoft, Tableau, and Data Cloud.